I know what it feels to almost taste gold. I was in the crowd of anticipating performers that night, behind the curtains of all ‘who had potential’, who chipped at their nails and waited for the call as their world rotated around them.

Before that night, in my room, I was pacing back and forth, breathing in and out, practicing because I had to be there, on the very top. I had to be the one who got to walk out of the curtain.

It was Saturday that night. I looked around and there were girls my age, all dressed up in their pretty gowns, their hair in loose braids or up in a bun with bows in them, the delicate work of someone who loved them, their eyes glistened with almost the same hope as mine. But it was in the next moments that I felt myself collapse. The world spun and I couldn’t hear a sound anymore. The silence choked the cacophony.

I focused on breathing deeply as a girl that I will never be, walked up with her charming smile, her refined posture and her flawless wave. The world submitted as she took the stage more impeccably than I ever could.

It was then that I knew what it felt to almost taste gold.

She wore the medal I envisioned as mine, she ran down the stage to a family that adores her, she hugged her dad as he lifted her and they laughed together. Her mother’s eyes filled with tears of joy as they looked at her with so much pride.

“So, it turns out, the world is really just a ball of raw hard coal that you can mould into crystals with enough willpower. You lose today, you win tomorrow. You win today, you lose tomorrow. You may not taste gold today, but someone else did in the most serene way ever. You may not know how to follow, but when has a bird ever been born flying? Maybe the cloud covers you and not her, because she ran for it in ways you have yet to reach. It was her bet too!” a voice in my head said to me.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 22nd, 2025